With the city council. For those of you who may be less familiar with the general society, i will ask how many of you here this evening will this be your first visit . All right. Warm welcome. Of course, welcome back to previous attendees. The general society was founded in 1785 by 22 artisans. Today our 234 yearold organization continues to serve the people of the city of new york. We do this through our cultural and educational pogroms. They include our lecture series of which tonights lecture is part of and our general Society Library which celebrates 200 years and next year and our tuition free Mechanics Institute and the john m which you are welcome to visit after our talk this evening and that is upstairs. You will find more information on the blueandwhite postcard on your seats. We have such a wonderful start to this years lecture season season and you have the pleasure of welcoming critically acclaimed biographer susan ronald who tonight will discuss her biography of conde nast the man and his empire. I also want to mention if you have not already done so you will have an opportunity to purchase this wonderful book with a stunning cover later this evening so please be aware that you have this opportunity and im sure susan will be happy to find the book for you. I also want to mention that cspan are also filming this talk tonight so this pogrom will also be rebroadcast on booktv and when we do get to the q a portion i want to remind you that anyone asking a question that you will have the opportunity to be featured on book tv. Born and raised in the United States, ms. Ronald, has lived in england for more than 25 years and has come over especially this week to talk about her book. She is the author of a dangerous woman, hitlers art thief, heretical queen, the pirate queen and shakespeares daughter. It is my considerable pleasure to introduce to you susan rona ronald. [applause] thank you everybody. I hope that our technical problems are at an end. You may see this new little dots on the bottom and i decided to write about conde nast the because i tend to write about power and greed. All of the people ive written about before there is another book which is not on here but happened have been greedy and they been powerful and almost all of them have had some sort of a brush with the law but after a dangerous woman about Florence Gould married to the t youngest son of jay gould, many of you who know of, i decided having written about someone who is incredibly powerful, incredibly devious and also the banker to Herman Goering by the end of the war and never ever was tried for her dastardly deeds i needed to cleanse myself and i wanted to write about the really good person so i told this to my agent and my publisher and they looked blankly at me and said you write about power and greed so how could you write about a nice person but it was my agent who suggested i have a look at the Publishing Industry and i said are there any good guys in publishing and sure enough he was right. I decided that i would write a book about one of the most powerful people at the turn of the century and going into world war two, conde nast. A lot of you know all the veriest nast magazines but they all werent there at the beginning. Id like to take you what mean meant what made conde nast, conde nast. There were circumstances but mostly i apologize for the quality of some of these photographs but they were his mother who is pictured on the right here and unfortunately i dont have her as a young woman. This was the only picture thely family still has in their possession. She was quite a lady in her own right. Her father was a guy called and he settled in st. Louis and this lovely home here and was married three times and had 15 children. He was extremely wealthy and he was a banker and apparently a good guy. I know that doesnt go with the terms banker but we will go with me on this. He left several Million Dollars to his children when he died and conde as a child played in his maternal grandfathers bedroom here and currently it is stillsa Historic House on the outskirts of st. Louis for mostly as a wedding venue today but of course esther his mother only inherited 300,000 by0, the time the money came down to her. Now, on his fathers side his grandfather was born in germany and emigrated to the United States as a teacher but was always a depressive kind of chap and very serious but he became and converted to methodism became known as the father of german methodism in north america, excuse me, north america. His eldest son william was a man who wanted to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth but the family did not have any. He decided that he would go off to germany as the American Council to germany and by himself meet uniform so he could hobnob with the royals. His father was beside himself and naturally william nast had hard times because he also stole money from american citizens while he was there. Re he left germany very quickly under a cloud and took a number of odd jobs. Somehow met up with esther in new york city. Conde was the eldest son and had another brother, louie, who wasr a great pianist but conde grew up essentially without a father and at the edge of three william nast cited he was going back to europe to make his fortune, actually it was more like hard work was only for suckers. Conde was the man of the family and had two younger sisters as well who were what they called new women. New women or women who made their own rules and did not hans around with chaperones before the turn of the 20th century, who actually were extremely independent and so was his mother but she had to be to keep the family together. Of course, as the years went on his father stayed away until he was 17 and things got tough in the end. The only nast member of the family that stayed close to them was his aunt fanny, williams nast younger sister. Fanny was actually quite a gal herself. She married into money and she loved fine things and was very stylish in her own way and this picture was taken in the 1880s you can see that she did like to look nice. What is amazing is that she married into the Gamble Family of Procter Gamble fame. She decided that she would help out or esther to get her sons to an American College that wouldve set them on their way. Only problem is when she went to visit louis apparently was very untidy and reminded her a great deal of her brother and of course he abandoned the family and therefore she decided she would only send conde to georgetown university. Louis never spoke to his brother again. Here is conde as he graduated and was a very handsome young man and his best friend at college was bob collier. Bob collier was, of course, the heir to the Collier Library and he went over for a year to europe, england and oxford and came back and his father said i iell give you colliers no not because its failing. They only had 1000 worth of advertising at the time he gave the weekly over to bob. Bob had done a lot of work with conde at various georgetown and went down to st. Louis and talked conde into accepting am 12dollar a week job with him. Which he did considering that he was the man of the family at that point and fortunately condes father had fortunately died it was no longer a drain on the family and the two worked together very happily indeed for about 15 years. Bob collierbo pictured here wasn innovator. He thought about making colliers last generalized magazine but with conde pushing him and saint look, we could sell advertising if we decide that we will create special issues so you saw before the other picture that i just showed you was a remington issue, reject remingtons art this was the issue that started the gibson girls going in terms of collier magazine and he overpaid gibson by the way double of what he would normally get in the ladies home journal so he could have been exclusively s for a period of two years. That was something that conde g learned about as well. Bob collier was also very into navigation and his great friend was auto right, on the right ear, together with conde they set up the First Ever National newspaper, National Magazine company that had its own Sales Network in every major city across america. Conde understood that to sell magazines you had to make sure your customer wanted to read the ads that were in it, first of all and that your advertisers had to feel he was not wasting his money advertising and also that you are something called ethical and what you sold. This was the era of quack medicines, almost every newspaper promise to give youe Something Special to cure i dont think i really want to have any swamp route, i dont know about you but i think thats pretty bad. This product called peru not claimed it could cure absolutely anything. Colliers joined with, believe it or not, ladies home journal to stop quack medicine advertising. They believed it was killing americans. This is just a few of the ads at te time. You could have your diabetes regulate cured, which the urbair system and assuage your thirst and rapidly decrease your sugar and prevent diabetic shock. Wonderful. Will not talk about these abandoned products. [laughter] the founder of post cereals was another on the people who was selling his cereals as medicine. There is heres to another years and years of study nerves, clear brains and vigorous health. Well, bob collier spurred on by conde decided he would sue old bw. He did and he won. Conde learned a great deal from his relationship with bob. Not only that but bob introduced him to his first wife, clarice. I dont know if any of you remember the legal firm brothers here in new york city and had their offices on fifth avenue for many, many years but the family came across to america at the behest of the marquis de lafayette, George Washingtons friend and established themselves as International Lawyers in america in the early 19th century and clarice was part off new yorks 400. Conde was, by now, a wealthy man. By 1902 when he married her he was earning about 40000 a year and the only person in america earning more at that time was Theodore Roosevelt as president. He earned 50000. She decided that she loved bob collier but bob collier did not love her. Conde was a good second for her interview but he was not afterod her money that he understood she held the whip hand as far as society was concerned. Only problem was conde understood society was changing. Women were changing. They are always changing. They wanted to become independent and they wanted the vote and they wanted their thoughts to be recognized and while certainly clarice felt that was for her to she did not like the idea of working for a living because that was beneaths a member of the 400 on the social register. Instead after two years of marriage where she had twoo children, the son first and the daughter. She decided she would go to paris and become a soprano. [inaudible] her Three Sisters lived there as well and one had been supporting the artist as his moneymaker basically for the previous 20 years. That isnt very good for a marriage obviously. Vi conde decided in 1904 he would set up on his own but yes, bob collier was paying him more money than he was worth and there was no doubt about it, 40000 a year in those days was close on 1 million. Essentially he decided he would take a plunge into womens fashion. N. Now you say why womens fashion . Here he is at a National Magazine and they are starting to go to the nich markets and conde decided that womens fashion would be key to the changing role of women. Up until now womens fashion in terms of the closing that would be put into patterns had two distinct shortcomings. The first, ofpa course, was that all patterns or giveaways alongside fabrics. N the second, which is moreas incredible, was the fact that there was only one size. Conde decided the new woman has many sizes. I will empower her and i will empower women without money to make their own clothing and all the sizes they come in and that they should discard their corsets, enjoy life and beat women. Of course, he was right. He ended up allowing ladies home journal to own labels their own patterns. Home Pattern Company was his first company. He still worked for bob collier but due to a number ofmp circumstances he ended up leaving in 1906. 1907 was the first time he tried to bite folk but he failed. He went across to europe at that point to rescue his two children from paris and his wife and she. Decided she wanted to stay on and so they went across, picked up the children and the nursemaid and clarice decided they wanted to come home, too. But then in 1909 he bought vogue. Clarice disappeared again for six months. No one in the family knows wife but she did. He was lucky enough to buy vogue sadly because its owner at that time called Arthur Turner part of colliers which was a big club at the time for publishers set it up very early on in 1895 and he had hired on a lady at that time as a mail clerk on the left. Her name is [inaudible] by the time you see her on the right she had been the editor of vogue or editor in chief of vogue for over 50 years. Conde kept her on obviously. It was turners sister who have been the actual editor at the time they bought it and she basically left due to a disagreement over some money. 1912 he decided to buy two more magazines and puts them into one, something called house and garden. I think a few of you have heard of that one, too. Now he has home patterns, vogue and house and garden and we are only in 1912. By 1914 he decides he really would like to set up an interNational Magazine empire dedicated to women and womens fashion. Unfortunately, theres something called world war i which began in europe in 1914 and for america began in 1917. Edna woman chase comes up to conde and says i have this wonderful idea and i know were cut off from french fashion and a note were cut off from there british mens fashions as well because of the war but why do we have something called a Charity Fashion show and get all of the new york 400 involved and conde was skeptical and said it smacks of trade. Clarice does not like working can you imagine these women working on a Charity Fashion show . She said give me a chance and she made it a success. She went to and was able to talk her into creating this fashion show. Maybe telephoned missus astor and it was a done deal. Only deal was it was arranged to be at the carlton in new york and all the models for all the fashions previously were tied to various fashion houses in europe, not in america. Missus astor and missus fish were able to cobble together an interesting show of new yorks fashion. Dont laugh. Here it is. The new York City Public Library just found some of the stills and if you go to their website you will see the fashions. As i said the models were tied to other places and as you can see fortunately conde was making clothes in different sizes because not all of them work models, or they . There were more of these apparently at the new York City Public Library and i thought it would be interesting to see. Anyway, this upset another gentleman called William Randolph hearst to adjust bought Harpers Bazaar. He saidr he sent his people out to badmouth vogue and conde mast is people who wanted to get rid of european fashion and not import it into america anymore and they were only out to support clothing designers et cetera et cetera. Well, what happened though was condes representative arrived in paris during the war and with a big fat check from the seamstress who had been put out of work. Hearst lost the first round but he was not going to give up. We all know he never did that. , 19152 things happened. The most important was lunch with a gentleman who founded the inffeehouse in this building, frank. Frank was a great aficionado of modern art and was everybodys favorite [inaudible] and had milesfr and acres of friends throughout new york city and conde had lunch with him probably at the coffeehouse actually. I dont know exactly and he said ive got a problem and ive bought two magazines called dress and vanity fair. Ive tried to edit them myself but im a publisher, not an editor. What hee think im getting wrong two frank said well, its very simple. You have to make it fizzle. You have to make it a Cocktail Party where every time someone turns the page they are joining you in a conversation and understanding what it is that everybody in society or everybody who we read about is thinking about. And so, conde decided to hire frank on as the editor for vanity fair on a handshake. He did his best deals on a handshake. They had one competitor at the time, hl mencken was the editor and it was the smart set where they said one civilized reader is 1000 [inaudible]. Smart set went out of business but, they had a very friendly rivalry between him and as a matter of fact, George Nathan who worked at smart set ended up working at vanity fair before it closed. Conde believed in hiring the best people, no matter what, it did not matter whether they were gay, lesbian, jewish, catholic, whatever, black, it did not matter. What mattered wasnt talent. It did not matter if they were known and so he hired a girl called Dorothy Rothschild to write captions for vogue and the one that caught the frank site was brevity is the soul of monterey. [laughter] she kept dropping little poems on franks desk to transfer over from little old vogue into vanity fair and finally he greed to take her on. He then also wanted to take on somebody to make the vanity fair substantial so he brought on the chap in the middle that i call Robert Benchley who was one of the funniest people ive ever read about and ive read his biography and its absolutely hysterical. Robert benchley was a harvard graduate and had been the editor of the